Identity-Based Transdiagnostic Therapy for Young People With Anxiety and Depression

Depression and anxiety are the most prevalent mental disorders among both the general population and young adults, and transdiagnostic treatments for these patients are mostly based on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Based on common (transdiagnostic) principles of treatment (e.g., emotional exposure), these approaches have proliferated and demonstrated their efficacy in comparison to disorder-specific treatments. Although there are a few transdiagnostic approaches for children and adolescents, it was not possible to not find anyone targeting young people. For this reason, the investigators proposed the Identity-Based Transdiagnostic Therapy (IBTT) as a new treatment modality ideally created to address the challenge of improving the outcomes of psychotherapy for young adults with anxiety and/or depression. The IBTT is a psychological treatment for emotional disorders specifically designed for the youths in terms of their attitudes to treatment (attractiveness, engagement), and highly personalized to their construal of self and others. This project will allow testing the hypothesis that a novel brief psychotherapeutic intervention, IBTT, will be more efficacious in the treatment of the anxiety and/or depression of young adults than the well-established CBT-based Unified Protocol.